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Festive Fishing Frenzy Review
This game is a festive makeover of an existing game. It plays out in a winter wonderland, complete with snow-covered landscapes, cozy cabins, and all the trimmings of the holiday season. The familiar 5x4 grid sits beneath the surface, surrounded by Christmas trees, presents, and even a snowman and Santa's sleigh. The festive spirit extends to the symbols, with the Santa seagull carrying a red gift bag and the royals dressed for the cold weather.
This reskin retains the core mechanics of the original game. Wins are formed by landing matching symbols across 12 paylines, with the premium symbols offering payouts of 50x to 200x your stake for 5-of-a-kind combinations. The royals award a respectable 10x for the same. You can place bets ranging from €0.10 to €50 per spin. With a medium to high volatility rating, this game offers a balance of risk and reward, so choose your bet level wisely.
The main attraction remains the exciting fish catching feature. Two boats positioned above the grid move to different reels on each spin. When they become active, indicated by more vibrant colors, they collect instant cash prizes from the fish symbols below, worth up to 1,000x your stake. Land both boats on the same reel, and you'll trigger the Mega Catch feature. This casts a net across the entire grid, reeling in all fish prizes in view for a potentially massive payout.
This game also boasts a bonus round where the boats can upgrade themselves with multipliers by catching special multiplier fish. Each boat can boost cash fish prizes by up to x5, or up to x10 when they merge during a Mega Catch. This means the max win of 5,000x your stake can be achieved from a single bonus round catch. The odds of that happening is a decent 1 in 12,396,694 spins, and the top-tier RTP is a tad above average as well.
Festive Fishing Frenzy Features
If you’ve played the original game, this game offers no surprises. Whether you're new to the game or just need a quick refresher, here's a rundown of how it all works.
Catch Symbols Feature
There are 2 boats above the reels that move around to different reels per spin. However, only active boats can catch anything. Active boats are moved into the foreground and have more vivid colors than inactive boats. Active boats collect fish and lobster prizes up to 1,000x, up to x3 multiplier fish (bonus round only), and +1 extra free spin fish (bonus round only) when these prizes appear on the reel below the boat. If 2 boats are active above the same reel, a net is cast to collect all catch symbols across the whole grid. This is known as the Mega Catch feature.
Festive Fishing Frenzy Free Spins
The Bonus Round triggers from landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols in view, awarding 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. The 2 boats are always active as they move around per free spin, and they start with an x1 multiplier. The boat multipliers are upgraded when they catch multiplier fish, with x5 being the highest possible boat multiplier. This multiplier boosts all cash prizes collected.
If you trigger the Mega Catch feature, the sum of both multipliers is applied to the win. Also, if the Mega Catch collects multiplier fish, the multiplier is added to both boats. Whenever fish prize symbols are collected, a streak respins feature triggers. With regular line wins disabled, the respins continue as long as you land more fish prizes to catch. Respins do not count as free spins and extra spins fish can award up to 39 free spins.
Pros and Cons of Festive Fishing Frenzy
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Boats haul in fish prizes of up to 1,000x | Reskin of existing game |
| Mega Catch net collects all present prizes | Beware of adjustable RTP ranges |
| FS w/ multiplier boats and catch streak respins | |
| Win up to 5,000x your stake (1 in 12.39m spins) |
Our Verdict
It's charting its own course with the fishing theme. The original game, despite its refreshing twist on the genre, never quite hooked the players the way we thought it would. Its reception was a rather modest. People love fishing games, and this one is by no means a bad catch. The moving boats collecting prizes add a dynamic element, and the prizes themselves are pretty decent, reaching up to 1,000x for a single fish.
The name suggests bigger wins and a massive potential, but instead, it delivered smaller prizes and a reduced max win. I'm still puzzled by that decision, and it seems players were equally unimpressed. Thankfully, this game redeemed themselves. With its pre-bonus modifier pick game, multiple fishing modes, and a juicier potential, it's easily the best and most successful installment in the series so far.
So, what to say about this casino slot? It's a bit of a head-scratcher why they chose to revisit the original game for an Xmas makeover, especially when they have a more successful title in the series. Perhaps they were hoping to reel in players with the holiday spirit, but offering nothing new besides a festive coat of paint seems like a missed opportunity. They could have decked out the Aussie fisherman in a Santa suit and given him a sleigh instead of a boat. Okay, so maybe a winter wonderland Down Under isn't the most realistic setting, but still.
Ultimately, this is a typical routine Xmas release, offering nothing new beyond the festive theme. While I still believe the original game deserved a better fate, I don't see this Christmas edition making a big splash either. The winter landscape setting is a bit cliche as well, and with so many other festive slots vying for attention, it's likely to get lost in the holiday shuffle.
